JAM WITH CHROME

JAM with Chrome is a real-time, interactive web application which enables friends in different locations to play music together in the Chrome browser on their computers.

Think Google’s doodles are fun? From the Google Creative Lab, “Jam” will occupy even more of your time – if you haven’t already discovered it. It showcases the capabilities of Google’s Chrome web browser via an online app you can use to make music.

After launching the Jam with Chrome website, you can pick from 19 music instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, drum kits, drum machines and keyboards. Then you click again to start jamming! The instruments will then pop up on the screen, becoming big enough to really see and use.

To play, users can use their mouse and keyboard to control the various functions. For instnace, you click your mouse on keyboard keys or guitar strings, or drag it across the instrument.

Instruments have an “easy” mode for those who are just messing around and a “pro” mode for folks who have a better idea what they’re doing. Online help and tips help you figure out how to use each one.

Further up the screen, users are able to switch a metronome off and on, adjust tempo settings, change key, swap instruments and access the online help. But the real prize delivered by the social component – which allows you to actually play with friends in different locations at the same time.

One of you can take the keyboard, the other the guitar and another mate can have the drums – before you know it, you have your own band. It’s a pity you can’t record, or save your jams, but you can share via Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Like Chrome’s other experiments, the online band is aims to showcase the browser’s HTML5 features including the Web Audio API, Websockets, Canvas, and CSS3. Google Web Fonts were also used and the tool was built on Google’s App Engine using the Go Programming language.